Analysis: Time for Chargers to reward VJ for playing game

San Diego Chargers wide receiver Vincent Jackson makes a touchdown catch in the end zone against the Green Bay Packers in the first quarter during an NFL football game, Sunday, Nov. 6, 2011, in San Diego. (AP Photo/Denis Poroy)
— AP

San Diego Chargers wide receiver Vincent Jackson makes a touchdown catch in the end zone against the Green Bay Packers in the first quarter during an NFL football game, Sunday, Nov. 6, 2011, in San Diego. (AP Photo/Denis Poroy)
/ AP

Chargers Mailbag

He didn't think he owed it to anyone to do so, but he did it anyway. And now there should be no impediment.

Yes, he made a tidy stipend of $11.4 million in 2011 while serving out his probation.

Nonetheless, even with a chip on his shoulder and despite various nagging injuries, Jackson has done what has been asked of him on and off the field. His agents -- very capable, yet extremely excitable fellows -- have stayed quiet since the attacks of October 2010. You can’t ask more of that side.

It’s time for the Chargers to do the right thing and sign Jackson to the kind of contract that gives a man (and his kids) (and his kids’ kids) financial security.

It has been three years since Jackson’s second DUI arrest in three years. And it has been two years since his citation for driving on a suspended license the morning of the Chargers’ most recent playoff game.

It was those three incidents that made the Chargers – particularly General Manager A.J. Smith – uncomfortable with signing Jackson to a long-term deal.

Smith intimated before this season that a long-term deal could be in the offing should Jackson go another season making his news solely on the field. The GM has long been a fan of the receiver’s production and work ethic. And sources indicated recently that Smith is, indeed, now “comfortable” exploring a long-term deal with Jackson.

Despite all Jackson has been through here – the sides wrangled over contract length before his rookie season, his agents started seeking a new contract more than four years ago, he was stuck in an unprecedented free agent purgatory due to the NFL’s labor uncertainty and the Chargers exercised their right to lowball him in 2010 – people close to Jackson say he genuinely wants to remain a Charger, working with Philip Rivers in Norv Turner’s offense.

The team is expected to begin talking with Jackson’s agents after the Super Bowl.

Why not sooner? In this case, Smith is like the mom whose reasoning is, “Because I said so.”

It doesn’t really matter, except that starting immediately would perhaps be received as an olive branch from the Jackson camp. That might help a little – you know, showing some respect to a player who feels slighted by the system and rankled that the organization made him jump through hoops.

Ultimately, though, regardless of when negotiations begin, it is dollars that will make sense of all this.

Sources indicated last week the Chargers would likely not be inclined to place the franchise tag on Jackson for 2012, as it would cost them $13.7 million to do so and they have other positions of need. But should talks go nowhere with agents Neil Schwartz and Jonathan Feinsod, it is not unfathomable that the Chargers would slap the tag back on Jackson to keep him around another year.